Healthy hair with 8 kinds of food

Looking good helps you feel good – and vice versa. Healthy beauty is all about smart, scientifically sound ways to care for and enhance your skin, hair, nails and body.

Guava to Prevent Breakage

This tropical fruit brims with vitamin C. It protects your hair from breaking. One cup of guava has 377 milligrams of vitamin C. That’s more than four times the minimum daily recommended amount. Bonus!

Grow With Greek Yogurt

It’s packed with protein, the building block of your locks. Greek yogurt also has an ingredient that helps with blood flow to your scalp and hair growth. It’s called vitamin B5 (known as pantothenic acid) and may even help against hair thinning and loss. You may recognize pantothenic acid as an ingredient on your hair and skincare product labels.

Salmon for Shine

Fish like salmon, sardines, and mackerel are packed with healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Your body can’t make these healthy fats, so you have to get them from food or supplements. They help protect you from disease, but your body also needs them to grow hair and keep it shiny and full.

Lean Poultry for Thickness

When you don’t get enough protein, hair growth “rests.” Since it stops and older hairs fall out, you can have hair loss. To get protein from meat, pick lean options like chicken or turkey, which have less saturated fat than sources like beef and pork.

Sweet Potatoes to Fight Dull Locks

Have dry hair that’s lost its shine? Sweet potatoes are filled with a good-for-you antioxidant called beta carotene. Your body turns beta carotene into vitamin A. That helps protect against dry, dull hair. It also encourages the glands in your scalp to make an oily fluid called sebum that keeps hair from drying out. You can also find beta carotene in other orange vegetables like carrots, pumpkin, cantaloupe, and mangoes.

Eggs for Growth

Your protein and iron bases are covered when you eat eggs. They’re rich in a B vitamin called biotin that helps hair grow. Not having enough of this vitamin can lead to hair loss. Biotin also helps strengthen brittle fingernails.

Oysters for Fullness

These are rich in zinc. When you don’t have enough of this mineral in your diet, you can have hair loss — even in your eyelashes. Cells that build hair rely on zinc to help them work their hardest. You can also find this mineral in beef, crab, lobster, and fortified cereal.

Cinnamon for Circulation

Sprinkle this spice on your oatmeal, toast, and in your coffee. It helps with blood flow, also called circulation. That’s what brings oxygen and nutrients to your hair follicles.